Libertarians and Lincoln

watsup said:

I've been debating with Libertarians for 25 years now, and early on I noted their deep-seated detestation of Abraham Lincoln for starting a war against the South and their claim of "state's rights" for the South in that regard. When I would go to a Libertarian website, there were always books displayed prominently declaring what a terrible president Lincoln was, and also denigrating him on a very personal basis. The quote below was made by a contributor to a Ron Paul discussion website:

"Lincoln was a ruthless dictator of the most contemptible sort. A conniving and manipulative man, and a scoundrel at heart, he was nowhere near what old guard historians would have us believe. This beast ruled the country by presidential decree, exercised dictatorial powers over a free people, and proceeded to wage war without a declaration from Congress. . . Lincoln was a consummate con man, manipulator, and a State-serving miscreant."

The Libertarian Attack on Abraham Lincoln by Gregory Hilton

PHOTO: According to the Claremont Institute, “The book is a compendium of misquotations, out-of-context quotations, and wrongly attributed quotations — one howler after another, yet none of i…

diplomatdc.wordpress.com

Have you noticed the Libertarian intense dislike of Lincoln?
If you are a Libertarian, do you agree with the description of Lincoln in the paragraph above?

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Tigerace117 said:

The irony of Libertarians defending a regime which explicitly went to war to protect slavery has always made me chuckle.

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watsup said:

STATE'S RIGHTS !

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watsup said:

I've been debating with Libertarians for 25 years now, and early on I noted their deep-seated detestation of Abraham Lincoln for starting a war against the South and their claim of "state's rights" for the South in that regard. When I would go to a Libertarian website, there were always books displayed prominently declaring what a terrible president Lincoln was, and also denigrating him on a very personal basis. The quote below was made by a contributor to a Ron Paul discussion website:

"Lincoln was a ruthless dictator of the most contemptible sort. A conniving and manipulative man, and a scoundrel at heart, he was nowhere near what old guard historians would have us believe. This beast ruled the country by presidential decree, exercised dictatorial powers over a free people, and proceeded to wage war without a declaration from Congress. . . Lincoln was a consummate con man, manipulator, and a State-serving miscreant."

The Libertarian Attack on Abraham Lincoln by Gregory Hilton

PHOTO: According to the Claremont Institute, “The book is a compendium of misquotations, out-of-context quotations, and wrongly attributed quotations — one howler after another, yet none of i…

diplomatdc.wordpress.com

Have you noticed the Libertarian intense dislike of Lincoln?
If you are a Libertarian, do you agree with the description of Lincoln in the paragraph above?

Click to expand...

Tigerace117 said:

Funnily enough, they don’t have the problem with the Fugitive Slave Act, which was a massive violation of states’ rights. Funny how that works.

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MrWonka said:

Libertarians believe that the only thing capable of doing any good for the world is the free market. Any intervention in the market no matter how positive the outcome is viewed as an outright attack on their entire world view.
To them, their so-called "intellectual consistency" requires them to attack any instance of government doing the right thing where a free market did not.

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watsup said:

If you are a Libertarian, do you agree with the description of Lincoln in the paragraph above?

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vanceen said:

I call myself a libertarian. I don't agree with the characterization of Lincoln in the OP. And I see perfectly the irony pointed out by TigerAce117 in any libertarian supporting human enslavement.

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watsup said:

Good for you. Unfortunately, not all of your fellow Libertarians agree with you:

"Republican Party sleek and modern, but this variant of the creed—associated with Ron Paul—is stubbornly perverse and highly unappealing.

The dean of the Lincoln-haters is Thomas DiLorenzo, an economics professor at Loyola College in Maryland, who writes books and gives talks about the man he cleverly calls "Dishonest Abe" and believes was guilty of treason. His scholarship, such as it is, consists of rummaging through the record for anything he can find to damn Lincoln, stripping it of any nuance or context, and piling on pejorative adjectives. In DiLorenzo, the Lincoln-haters have found a champion with the judiciousness and the temperament they deserve.

He contributes to the website LewRockwell.com, the eponymous fever swamp of Lew Rockwell, who is widely suspected of having written Ron Paul's racist newsletters. Rockwell now serves on the boardof the new Ron Paul foreign-policy think tank, the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity."

The Right’s Anti-Lincolnites

The small but foul pro-Confederacy strain on the right has proven stubbornly perverse, writes Rich Lowry.

www.thedailybeast.com

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